A key point that almost every organization seems to miss in the data economy is that just because they are collecting so much data doesn’t mean they are collecting the right data, or even enough data. They may be either collecting very little of something very important or not collecting the right data at all. Even more appalling are situations in which organizations collect huge amounts of data and do absolutely nothing with it. People often make the mistake of connecting value with voluminous data.

In the last few years, the enterprise landscape has changed. While IoT “infestation” is a major reason for this change, there are other important reasons too. The need to provide flexible interface for your partners in a quick manner, the need to mobile enable not only any new application/process that is being built, but also existing applications, and the need for enterprises to connect/synergize with social networks, cloud, etc. all dictate where your shrinking enterprise IT dollars need to be spent.

Almost every enterprise that I know takes a very cautious approach to this new API game. They build it, test it, try it, do a limited release, then fix the necessary areas, test it again, and finally, when they are satisfied they are ready, they get it out in the open. Unlike fly-by-night operations, established businesses have a lot at stake when it comes to putting APIs out in the open. Their reputation! This is key before you can declare your APIs as business assets.

Recently, I wrote a blog on “What powers the mobile economy?” which created lot of interesting conversations. A few large enterprise customers reached out to me and suggested they can relate to things I said in my post. In my follow-up conversations with them, a couple of more interesting views came up.

Recently, my colleague Claus wrote a blog on whether you need API management if you already have a decent mobile initiative. The topic was so good that I thought I would pile on and provide my opinion on it as well.

One of the points he established was that if you are deploying very few mobile apps on a few selected devices, for one or two LOBs (Line of Business or Business Units), then it is a wash. You might do better without having an API initiative. I completely agree. Problems begin to pile up when you have multiple mobile apps and want to have a common baseline across them.

A major issue that I keep hearing from many executives is the proliferation of mobile initiatives with or without IT approval and/or oversight. Unfortunately, given the excitement, need and necessity to produce mobile apps quickly, the IT departments can’t cope with the demand from LOBs. There are times mobile initiatives are run by LOBs, in parallel, without the knowledge and oversight of IT. Unfortunately, most of these haphazardly-built apps access your enterprise data without proper controls. This is when your mobile apps (and APIs) become liabilities instead of assets. Read my article on this topic here: Is your API an asset or a liability?

Do you know “Snappening”? It is a story about private Snapchat pictures turning from Casper, the friendly ghost, to a scary Halloween ghost. Recently, there was a second incident at Snapchat in which users had about 200,000 private pictures exposed (mostly pictures of under-aged users, aged from 13-17) online. Most had no knowledge of these photos being stored by anyone. Given the nature of some of those pictures (under aged/minor compromising pictures), these can be considered illegal to possess.

[Image courtesy: Casper’s Scare School]

[Snappening is a little different than the Fappening that occurred a few months ago in which female celebrities’ nude pictures were hacked from iCloud. In that case, the attack was targeted at specific celebrity accounts with a combination of brute force and phishing. Hence, the attack was limited to very few accounts and not massive scale like Snapchat.]